Route 28's intersection with Route 149 and Prince Avenue doesn't need a stoplight because there aren't enough left turns being made there.

Of course, not enough left turns are being made there because people are deathly afraid of crossing the state highway without a light.

"Catch 22" was the catchphrase at Monday's public hearing at town hall on preliminary design ideas for that intersection and two others: Route 28 and Main Street/South County Road and Route 28 and Lumbert Mill Road.

Residents have waited years for the state highway department to make progress on solutions for the crossing of the 50-mph road, and those concerned about the latter two areas heard good news Monday.

Pam Haznar, acting project development engineer for District 5 of Mass Highway, joined two consultants form Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc., to report that traffic studies found stoplights warranted at South County and at Lumbert Mill but not at Route 149.

John Bechard, managing director for transportation engineering at VHB, said work at all three intersections is at the preliminary design stage and the combined project is scheduled tentatively for advertising next year.

"I agree it is difficult" to cross Route 28 at Route 149, said David Greenberg, VHB project manager for signal design and operations, His suggestion that Prince Avenue and Route 149 be restricted to right-turn only status met with disbelief from the audience, who couldn't imagine out-of-town boaters obeying signs that required them to take their trailers a mile down the road to turn in the right direction.

Chief John Farrington of the Centerville-Osterville-Marstons Mills Fire Department said he wants traffic signals at all three locations, as well as left-turn arrows. Without a light at Route 149, he said, motorists would use back roads that would take them down quiet and well-populated side streets.

The traffic engineers said that traffic lights were not the sole solution for any of the intersections, mentioning left-turn and right-turn lanes. They noted also that traffic lights would build queues of cars waiting to get through a cycle.

Osterville Councilor Jim Crocker asked some pointed questions about whether the town could take control of a stretch of Route 28 around the Route 149 intersection from the state. Haznar said that was certainly possible, noting town control of Route 6A through the heart of Barnstable Village, but said that, "no matter where the money comes from," an intersection has to meet standards before it can be signalized.